No Apologies, No Regrets, Just Busy with Summer!

I'm sure I should feel guilty about posting, but I'm really not that much. This summer has been so crazy busy. So busy that we had planned on taking a family vacation to Washington DC this August and when we gave the kids a choice of DC or going to our favorite vacation island in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula of Michigan), the kids chose a week at a cabin in the UP. We'll boat, swim (although Lake Huron is not the warmest lake), watch the sunset from the deck on the private beach, read, knit, ride ATVs, kayak, fish, and throw in some off-road exploring to Fossil Ledges and Marblehead. I'm looking forward to a nice relaxing time.

I have got some knitting done this summer (four times a week), but not as much as usual because the kids soccer games got way more interesting this year and I'm British, so soccer (although us Brits have it named correctly with Football) requires me jumping up and down, cheering, and yelling (possibly occasionally yelling at the Ref's and I may or may not have been asked to shut up or leave by a ref or two, but I'm not going on the record on that). After finding I was throwing my knitting to the floor one too many times, I stopped taking it with me.

I've been on a big finishing kick thanks to Jessica and lots of sock knitting as I was trying to make myself feel better about not going to Sock Summit and being quite jealous in the process.

Camp was so much fun and I was lucky enough to have Jess at our house a day before camp as every year she has hit terrible delays and missed the first few hours of camp or more, so this year she thought she'd be smart and beat the weather by leaving a day early. So Mother Nature laughed and invited Murphy over to prank Jess with perfect non-delaying weather this year of camp.

We seemed to forget that we were grown women at camp and acted like silly fifteen year old girls. We fell in love with these purses (there was a whole collect of them) that one lady had knit. They are stunning. Jessica and I were tempted to take off with this one while the knitter was watching show and tell.

I fell in love again with the Lloie Cardigan this year at camp, so Jess helped me pick out some yarn. First it started with me and Jess playing with the Satakelli.

We then decided to shift yarns to the Shetland. Schoolhouse had a new system this year for previewing the Shetland yarns with eight or so balls of yarn on a string... necklace maybe! Here I am trying out my colors to see if they work with my skin tone per Jess' direction.

The final selection!!!

It was a wonderful time and we met, as usual, some great knitters. Jessica had her usual camp fling - this year with Ann. But, we really missed Denise but were so excited for her to be playing with her new little baby instead. Miss you, Denise.

These are my Kai-Mei socks in yummy Sundara yarn.

Plain old garden variety socks in Plucky knitters sock yarn.

Another plain pair of socks in Chewy Spaghetti.

And the WIP, my Glynis socks from Sock Innovation in Smooshy.

While I was packing for camp I mentioned to Jessica about my insane pile of UFO's. She was having none of that and insisted that I get cracking on finishing up my many 95% finished projects. So while at camp I finished my Claudie Cardigan, kitchenered two pair of socks, and knit start to finish a Butterfly Vest. Quite a productive time. Since returning from camp I have completed another pair of socks from Sock Innovation and am 75% done with another pair. Also have been sewing together Madison's Libby Cardigan which has sat since March just needing sewing together and a neck band. Pathetic, I know! Also I've been pulling out an old project or two to work on rather than starting lots of new ones. Although that may change with today's fun package that arrived in the mail....

Twisted Stitch Knitting arrived from Schoolhouse - hot off the press! I preordered it while at camp and am so excited to play with it. I have a project or two in mind using twisted stitch, which I really enjoyed last year at camp.

I'm trying to be strong, Jessica, honest, I am!!!!